Dakota was going to college.
Or not going to college. Or going to college but only for the "experience" not the "credential." Or getting a "gap year fellowship" in "intentional community building." Or joining a "cooperative learning collective" in Portland.
The options changed daily.
"I'm not sure college is ethical," Dakota announced at dinner one night.
"Ethical how?" I asked.
"The university system is built on exploitation. Of adjunct professors. Of students who take out predatory loans. Of—"
"Of your father's sanity," Jennifer interrupted. "Pick a lane, Dakota. Any lane."
"But there are so many lanes! And they all have problems! Lane A is expensive. Lane B is exploitative. Lane C is too far away. Lane D doesn't have the right 'vibe.'
"Vibe?" I said. "You're choosing a college based on vibe?"
"I'm choosing a life path based on holistic alignment," Dakota corrected.
"You're seventeen. You don't have holistic alignment. You have homework."
Dakota sighed, the sigh of a generation that had been told they could be anything and now resented the pressure of infinite possibility.
"I just don't want to make the wrong choice," they said quietly. "This feels... permanent."
And there it was. The fear. The Gen Z anxiety, inherited from Millennials, compounded by TikTok, manifested as indecision.
I remembered being seventeen. I had applied to two colleges, gotten into one, and gone. No "gap year." No " T myself." Just... go. Because that's what you did.
But Dakota had been raised in a world where every choice was documented, analyzed, optimized. They couldn't just go to college. They had to curate the college experience. They had to make sure it "aligned with their values." They had to ensure it would "set them up for success," as if success were a destination you could mapquest.
"What if," I said slowly, "you just picked one? And tried it? And if it didn't work, you tried something else?"
"But that's wasteful," Dakota said. "Of money. Of time. Of... of potential."
"Potential is just future disappointment if you don't use it," I said.
"That's dark."
"That's Gen X."
Jennifer stepped in. "What do you actually want, Dakota? Not what you think you should want. Not what your friends want. What do you want?"
Dakota was quiet for a long time. "I want to learn things," they said finally. "I want to meet people who think differently than me. I want to... I want to feel like I'm becoming something. Not just... not just existing."
"Then go to college," I said. "Any college. Pick the one that feels least wrong and go. Learn things. Become something. And if it sucks, leave."
"That's not very supportive," Dakota said.
"It's extremely supportive. It's the most supportive thing I can say. I'm giving you permission to fail."
"Why would I want permission to fail?"
"Because failure is how you learn. Failure is how you grow. Failure is—"
"The only option available to my generation?" Dakota suggested.
"No," I said. "The only option available to anyone. Boomers failed. Gen X failed. Millennials definitely failed. You're not special. You're just next."
Dakota stared at me. "That's... that's the most honest thing you've ever said."
"I'm Gen X. We're honest when we're tired."
They picked a college. A small liberal arts school in the Pacific Northwest that had "good vibes" and a "strong social justice focus" and "sustainable campus initiatives." It was expensive. It was probably not worth the debt. But it was a choice. And Dakota made it.
And on the day we moved them in, I watched them stand in their dorm room—a room they would share with a stranger who would become a friend or an enemy or just a person they passed in the hallway—and I saw them become something.
Not an adult. Not yet. But something in between. A college student. A person trying.
"Thanks, Dad," Dakota said, hugging me. "For... you know. Not being a boomer about it."
"I'm Gen X," I said. "I'm never a boomer about anything."
"You're sometimes a boomer."
"Never."
"That thing you do with your phone, where you hold it at arm's length and squint?"
"That's vision problems, not boomerism."
"Same thing."
I left them there, in their overpriced dorm room with their sustainable bedding and their anxiety and their hope. And I drove home with Jennifer, both of us quiet, both of us thinking about the child we had raised who was now somewhere else, becoming someone else.
"They'll be okay," Jennifer said.
"I know," I said.
"Do you?"
"No. But I'm Gen X. We're good at pretending."
She laughed. We held hands. We drove home to the Silent Crew, now slightly less crew-like, slightly more silent.
And that night, I allowed myself to feel proud. Not of the college. Not of the choice. But of Dakota. Of their trying. Of their refusal to give up even when giving up seemed like the only logical option.
They were Gen Z. They were impossible. They were also, somehow, going to be okay.